[WikiEN-l] 172 sysop status restored

Thu Jul 24 14:41:46 UTC 2003

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 24 July 2003 13:00, wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org <> wrote:

> I have never withdrawn my objection to sysop status for 172. I knew
> he would abuse his status and he has repeatedly, you are just looking
> at the tip of the iceberg; most instances result from his leftist POV
> urge to revise history. 

Urgh. Quite apart from anything else, 'leftist' is a relativistic, and
hence inherently-POV, word; that you consider 'leftist' persons' examination
of past events is "revis[ing] history", that you implicitly push the idea
that such historical revisionism is bad, and that you generalise on this
point, implying that the cause celebre of 'leftist'-ism is said historical
revisionism and that all 'leftist' persons, also lend to a disregard for
your opinion based on the  way you have stated it, I would have thought.

Also, I have no idea what you mean by 'leftist'; perhaps the evil scum-
like Red Commies? Disgusting weak French Socialism? Easy-going overly-
amenable benevolents, like Stalin? [1]

Surely peoples' politics shouldn't affect what you think of them as
responsible people? I know many people more towards (what I would
consider) the 'left' and 'right' sides of the political spectrum than I
am, and I don't think (significantly)[3] less of them for their views,
even though I may disagree with them. Certainly, I don't think they are
less capable of rational argument, nor do I consider them more (or less)
likely to not want to 'play fair' and attempt to subvert social processes
they interact with.

[Snip]

[1] - Yes, these were all picked deliberately to initiate a commentary[2],
      and are exceptionally extreme both in my depiction and imagery, but
      as I have no particular concept of the political background you come
      from and what you would consider 'normal'. I don't agree with any of
      my characterisations, for the record.

[2] - Or 'start a fight', if you prefer ;-)

[3] - Obviously, being but an imperfect human, I cannot wholly remove my
      inherent disregard for the concepts and beliefs of others, but
      merely reduce them.

Yours,
- --
James D. Forrester
<mailto:jon at eh.org> | <mailto:csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk>
<mailto:jamesdforrester at hotmail.com> | <mailto:james at jdforrester.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0

iQA/AwUBPx/wKZJ95FMWcicdEQK+UQCdF/5+qdlhARhHu28n0iUAyk5rkp8AnROu
Qj4nv7xPsHapRV5ktGcE0A8X
=nYHb
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----